Relationship between Dmitri Shostakovich and Joseph Stalin

The relationship between Dmitri Shostakovich and Joseph Stalin was among the most controversial of the Soviet government's relationships with contemporary artists. The style of Shostakovich's composition often did not conform to Stalin's view of "correct Soviet form"; this led to great tensions between the two men. Shostakovich's music was censored multiple times, but also gained favor with the Party at various intervals.

Early stages and first fall from favor

Entry into the Soviet musical scene

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Dmitri Shostakovich

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Joseph Stalin

Shostakovich began his musical career without substantial intervention of the government. The First Symphony was a very successful composition, written in 1926 when the composer was only nineteen; the piece traveled as far as America, where it was well received at its Philadelphia premiere under Stokowski. The next year, Shostakovich produced his Second Symphony (subtitled "To October"), a patriotic piece with a great pro-Soviet choral finale. Due to its experimental nature, as with the subsequent Third Symphony, the pieces were not critically acclaimed with the enthusiasm as granted to the First. Shostakovich's satirical 1928 opera The Nose did little to improve his public standing; the composer did not promote the work due to criticism in musical circles.

Lady Macbeth and the Pravda articles

Despite the setbacks of early work, Shostakovich's fame and reputation became well established with the 1934 premiere of his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, a tragedy depicting a nineteenth century romance. The piece received astounding acclaim upon its introduction; popular support was substantial. Moreover, the opera was greatly favored by Party officials, one of whom commented that it "could have been written only by a Soviet composer brought up in the best tradition of Soviet culture." This spectacular success was, however, ephemeral: in 1936 Shostakovich attended a performance of the opera in Bolshoi Theatre, a performance also attended by Stalin and Party affiliates. Stalin became enraged at the spectacle and angrily stormed out of the opera house after the conclusion of the first act. Two days later an article appeared in the central Soviet newspaper Pravda entitled Muddle Instead of Music; the columns made nasty criticisms of Lady Macbeth as well as general denunciations of Shostakovich's musical style. The article was unsigned: this was a clear indication that the Party, probably encouraged or directly ordered by Stalin, had written the piece and held that position toward Shostakovich. The newspaper proved to have disastrous consequences on Shostakovich's reputation--commissions from influential entities fell substantially, and the composer's income suffered. The appearance of this article prompted opera houses throughout the Union to cancel future performances of Lady Macbeth. The scandal was followed by another government article called Ballet Falsehood, this time denouncing the composer's ballet The Limpid Stream, claiming that the ballet gave a poor depiction of life in collective farms, the subject of the work. Ballet Falsehood came as a surprise; Shostakovich did not expect the biting remarks about a work which he thought would not instigate Party anger.

Withdrawal of the Fourth Symphony

The publication of Party criticism coincided with the composition of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony. The work was a great shift in style for the composer: a large influence of Gustav Mahler is noted, and the piece itself has multiple Western elements. The symphony gave Shostakovich compositional trouble, as he attempted to reform his style into a new idiom. The composer was well into the work when the fatal articles appeared. Despite this, Shostakovich continued to compose the symphony and planned a premiere at the end of 1936. However, after a number of rehearsals, Shostakovich, for reasons still debated today, decided to withdraw the symphony from the public. The work was not premiered until 1961, well after Stalin's death. It is possible that this decision spared the composer's life: during this time Shostakovich feared for himself and his family. In order to maintain as low a profile as possible Shostakovich decided to write film music, a genre favored by Stalin and lacking in dangerous personal expression.

Fifth Symphony

Shostakovich was determined to safely regain public approval. It was clear that in order to do so he had to simplify his compositional style, edit out experimentation and adopt a more traditional stance, reminiscent of the Romantic era. In 1937 Shostakovich began writing his Fifth Symphony. The piece conformed much more cohesively to the standard set by Stalin; it received a grand premiere. At the same time Russia was experiencing Stalin's Great Purge: many in Leningrad lost family or friends to the mass executions. The Fifth drove many to tears and welling emotions. Later Shostakovich wrote in his memoirs: "I'll never believe that a man who understood nothing could feel the Fifth Symphony. Of course they understood, they understood what was happening around them and they understood what the Fifth was about." The Fifth catapulted Shostakovich back into public favor. Music critics and the bureaucracy alike stated either that Shostakovich had "learned from his mistakes" or fixed his "erroneous ways." The rehabilitation of Shostakovich's image allowed him to gain a position at the Leningrad Conservatory.

War

In 1939, before the Soviets entered the Second World War, the Union had undertaken a campaign in Finland called the Winter War, and Party Secretary Zhdanov commissioned a work from Shostakovich to commemorate the expected victory. The Red Army faced a surprising defeat; Shostakovich never claimed to have written the work and the bureaucracy did not mention the piece again.

Seventh Symphony

The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 caused panic in Leningrad. For some time before the war, Shostakovich had been working on his Seventh Symphony, his most famous and perhaps his most cryptic work. The first movement had already been completed; it was intended as a subtle representation of Stalin (this was later achieved affirmatively in the Tenth Symphony). When the war began it became obvious to Shostakovich that the movement he had written would be a perfect resistance piece: it sponsored the chilling "invasion theme," a march depicting the Nazi encroachment on Russia (later speculation proposes the theory that the invasion theme was at first intended for Stalin and was then adapted to pertain to the war; the symphony has a nickname, "Leningrad", which suits the purpose). After completing the symphony (while evacuated from the city), Shostakovich sent the score to be performed throughout the Union. Like the Fifth, the symphony stirred tears in the eyes of the war-weary Russians. Positive acclaim was almost universal. Stalin hailed Shostakovich as a hero of the Soviets. At its premiere in Leningrad, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, commander of the Leningrad Front, ensured what was called the "eighty minutes of silence", where no bombs were heard to interrupt the symphony. Shostakovich had ensured himself a position of great favor with Stalin and the bureaucracy. As the war drew on, the composer sent the score to be performed througout the Allied countries. In America the symphony was performed by Arturo Toscanini to great success. Perhaps the most important result of the symphony's outstanding performance was its power of motivation, both inside and outside the Union. Stalin used this to his advantage: in order to cast a favorable impression of the Union and its artists on the West, he promoted the symphony as much as he could. In addition, the work received favorable reviews in Pravda, signaling the official comeback of Shostakovich's standing with the Party. Stalin was particularly pleased with the grand, victorious finale.

Eighth Symphony

The success of the Seventh was not replicated with the Eighth. While the Seventh stood clearly as a powerful resistance and as an easily comprehendible battle with the enemy, the Eigth is comparatively a sullen, strange piece with little motivational force, a power desperately needed at the height of the war in 1943, when the symphony premiered. The unsatisfactory circumstances of the symphony caused Stalin to ban it from playing in the Union as part of the 1948 Zhdanov decree. The ban was not lifted until 1956. In order to preserve the image of Shostakovich (a vital bridge to the people of the Union and to the West), the government assigned the name "Stalingrad" to the symphony, giving it the appearance of a mourning of the dead in the bloody Battle of Stalingrad. However, the symphony did not escape criticism. Shostakovich writes: "When the Eighth was performed, it was openly declared counter-revolutionary and anti-Soviet. They said, 'Why did Shostakovich write an optimistic symphony at the beginning of the war and a tragic one now? At the beginning we were retreating and now we're attacking, destroying the Fascists. And Shostakovich is acting tragic, that means he's on the side of the fascists.'" Unlike the Seventh, the symphony does not demonstrate a feeling of hope, a sorely needed emotion at the time (in a literal context, the only supply line to Leningrad was the Road of Life, a temporary structure at best). Stalin did not however criticize Shostakovich as harshly now as he did in 1936; that would have been a clumsy public relations move both in and out of the Union. He nevertheless did not refrain from offering his disdain.

Ninth Symphony

After the war was won Stalin was understandably very pleased. It was his tacit expectation that Shostakovich would produce a glorious work dedicated, if only indirectly, to him; Stalin expected a choral finale, huge orchestration and spectacular emotional output. In particular the Premier thought that the composer's "Ninth" Symphony, a special number by all musical accounts (see Curse of the Ninth), would exemplify all the beauty and triumph manifested in victory. Shostakovich gave hints of such a work under way, but eventually produced a "Haydnesque", short, lighthearted little symphony that intentionally did not meet Stalin's standards. The composer writes,

"Everyone praised Stalin, and now I was supposed to join this unholy affair. There was an appropriate excuse. We had ended the war victoriously; no matter what the cost, the important thing was that we won, the empire had expanded. And they demanded that Shostakovich use quadruple winds, choir and soloists to hail the leader. Stalin always listened to his experts and specialists carefully. The experts told him that I knew my work and therefore Stalin assumed that the symphony in his honor would be a quality piece of music. He would be able to say, 'There it is, our national Ninth.' I confess that I gave hope to the leader and teacher's dreams. I announced that I was writing an apotheosis. I was trying to get them off my back but it turned against me. When my Ninth was performed, Stalin was incensed. He was deeply offended, because there was no chorus, no soloists. And no apotheosis. There wasn't even a paltry dedication. It was just music, which Stalin didn't understand very well and which was of dubious content....I couldn't write an apotheosis to Stalin, I simply couldn't."

Shostakovich expected major criticism on the government's part and received it.

Post-War developments

Zhdanov decree

In 1948 Andrei Zhdanov, now Chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet, issued a denunciation of a number of artists, Shostakovich among them. The work of the accused composers, among whom were Prokofiev and Khachaturian, was described as overly formalist and simply anti-Soviet. This was part of an ongoing anti-formalism campaign intended to root out all Western compositional sentiment as well as any perceived "non-Russian" output. Shostakovich suffered from this doctrine.

Visit to America

In order to maintain good relations with the West, Stalin decided that the Soviets needed to send an artistic representive to the Cultural and Scientific Congress for World Peace in New York City; he chose Shostakovich. The composer was unwilling to attend. He had built himself (probably unintentionally) a reputation in the West as a heroic fighter, and especially as one free from the direction of the Communist government. An appearance in America as Stalin's mouth would portray him simply as another puppet of the bureaucracy--Shostakovich wanted to preserve, at least in some sense, a respectable image of Russia's artists in the west. Despite his opposition, Stalin forced him to attend. He did so by calling Shostakovich on the telephone, a very rare occurrence. Stalin contradicts his own order by claiming that he was not aware of the ban on the composer's music. Shostakovich writes the following:

"No, I said. I won't go. I'm ill, I can't fly, I get airsick. Then Stalin called. And in his nagging way, the leader and teacher asked me why I didn't want to go to America. I answered that 'I couldn't. My comrades' music wasn't played, and neither was mine. They would ask about it in America. What could I say?' Stalin pretended to be surprised. 'What do you mean, it isn't played? Why aren't they playing it?' Now came the interesting part. Stalin announced, 'No, we didn't give that order.'"

Shostakovich did lose his credibility in the West, in some way, in New York. When asked whether he supported the then-recent denunciation of Stravinsky's music in the Soviet Union (Shostakovich was a great admirer of Stravisnky and took great influence from him), Shostakovich was, under pressure from Stalin, to answer in the affirmative; this gave a signal to the West that the composer was simply another "Communist puppet." Shostakovich remained ashamed of the episode thereafter.

Death of Stalin

Shostakovich responded to the death of Stalin with the Tenth Symphony. The scherzo is meant to be a representation of Stalin himself. After the "menace" of Stalin was gone from Shostakovich's way, the composer had a slightly easier time working. He still had a difficult relationship with the government, and the ban that Zhdanov had placed in 1948 was not lifted until 1956, three years after Stalin's death and well into the rule of Khruschev.

See also

• Sergei Prokofiev
• Modernism
• Igor Stravinsky
• Great Purge
• List of compositions by Dmitri Shostakovich
• Seventh Symphony
• Siege of Leningrad
• Solomon Volkov
• Anna Akhmatova